If you live in Monte Vista, Colorado, you can buy potatoes grown within half a mile of your house. That’s about as local as you can get without growing the potatoes yourself. Before I moved here, I thought there were red potatoes and white potatoes (and there are) but there are also gold potatoes and red potatoes with yellow “meat.” There are red, white and blue potatoes you can cook up for your 4th of July potato salad. This is truly a brave new potato world, for me, anyway.
Problem is, I don’t “get” potatoes. They fall into a category with rice of “tasteless white starches.” I’m a bread and/or pasta kind of person. Oatmeal.
My mom always said (of herself) “It’s not a meal unless there’s a potato on the table.” I got her a convincing ceramic potato to leave on her table at all times. She didn’t think it was funny, but it WAS funny. My aunts were fooled and said, “Helen, what’s this potato doing on your table?” or “Helen, there’s a potato on your table you forgot to put away.”
Pretty soon is the biggest local event of the year — the Ski (sky) Hi Stampede which is three days of rodeo, carnival and parades. Monte Vista is home to the first pro-rodeo in Colorado. I like rodeo but, so far, I haven’t been to this one. Maybe this year.
“Summer is the season of inferior sledding” - Inuit proverb 
That would be something for me. Since moving to Switzerland I discovered that thers was a thing called pasta and rice which you could also eat with your dinner. After 50 years I am still a potato fan, but prefer them fried or as rösti. Mr. Swiss is a pasta man, so I have to do both, but you cannot beat a potato. Now and again I see the blue potatoes here and I would love to make a two coloured Rösti with them. I would love to visit your potato festival and I am sure you can get some good dishes there.
The potato festival always has cooking demonstrations. 🙂 I like rösti — we call it hash browns, but it’s the same thing, imported by those Swiss immigrants, probably…
Thank you, Martha!! Bread and pasta are my carbs of choice–always. I do like Yukon Gold potatoes–when I am in a potato frame of mind. But then I have to have sour cream and a lot of chives. And no sweet potatoes. Yuck. Just no.
I don’t mind sweet potatoes. But yeah. What’s up with potatoes? But I now have 5 pounds of them so I will do what I can :-p
I had no idea. I thought Idaho was the potato capital of the world; now I learn Monte Vista also has bragging rights for its potatoes. When he retired, my dad had an incredible vegetable garden — a difficult trick in Lander, Wyoming. He grew blue potatoes one year that I found quite tasty. But then I like potatoes.
What is wonderful to me about “our” potatoes 🥔 is that they smell like the soil in my yard! That’s really kind of a miracle to me. As for Lander, I’ve been there more than once as a kid!
Mmmm. I like the idea of potatoes that smell like the earth. Lander has long, cold winters and a short growing season, much like Craig.
I had to look on the map — yes. We went through Lander (sometimes spent the night) on our drives from Denver to Billings if we wanted to go through Thermopolis or we (meaning parents) wanted to see something that was on the way. “Do you want to stop for the night in Rawlins?” “We got a good start. Let’s go on to Lander.” 🙂
They grow all those same potatoes in Maine. The blue ones are new. I keep thinking about buying them, but Garry is much more corn and rice and not especially interested in potatoes except maybe fried ones. Actually, I could leave out everything except rice and he’d still be happy.
I ❤ potatoes! :)Blue potatoes? really? Wow.. I hear Peru has a loot of varieties of potatoes!